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Day: October 16, 2008

If I was perfectly adapted, or perfectly designed I’d be able to fly, breath underwater, run 75mph, never suffer from muscle fatigue, would be able to go weeks without water rather then a day or two and I’d have a gene that manufactured proteins that prevent me from freezing to death in sub-zero waters, Genes hold secret of survival of Antarctic ‘antifreeze fish’

There are eight families of notothenioid fish, and five of them inhabit the Southern Ocean, the frigid sea that encircles the Antarctic continent. These fish can withstand temperatures that would turn most fish to ice. Their ability to live in the cold – and oxygen-rich – extremes is so extraordinary that they make up more than 90 percent of the fish biomass of the Southern Ocean.

University of Illinois animal biology professor Arthur DeVries discovered in the late 1960s that some notothenioids manufacture their own “antifreeze proteins.” These proteins bind to ice crystals in the blood to prevent the fish from freezing.

I’m not bitter though, I forgive Morgan Freeman for designing me with so many obvious short comings.

Voters have great difficulty judging which aspects of their own and the country’s ­well-­being are the responsibility of elected leaders and which are not. In the summer of 1916, for example, a dramatic ­week­long series of shark attacks along New Jersey beaches left four people dead. Tourists fled, leaving some resorts with 75 percent vacancy rates in the midst of their high season. Letters poured into congressional offices demanding federal action; but what action would be effective in such circumstances? Voters probably didn’t know, but neither did they care. When President Woodrow ­Wilson—­a former governor of New Jersey with strong local ­ties—­ran for reelection a few months later, he was punished at the polls, losing as much as 10 percent of his expected vote in towns where shark attacks ­had occurred.

Depending on whether you’re a half full or half empty type, if such dynamics actually exist, there is reason to think there is hope, but only a thin sliver. Some very bright people have been looking at voting patterns for decades – why and who people vote for. While the outcomes may have been good at times, if we decided on our elected officials solely with a roll of the dice we probably would still be about where we are today.

As of Friday, a $10,000 investment in the S.& P. stock market index* would have grown to $11,733 if invested under Republican presidents only, although that would be $51,211 if we exclude Herbert Hoover’s presidency during the Great Depression. Invested under Democratic presidents only, $10,000 would have grown to $300,671 at a compound rate of 8.9 percent over nearly 40 years.